


"No One Hates You More Than You Do": An Essay on Self-Loathing, Shame, Suicidality and Dean Winchester

by MazalHaMidbar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MazalHaMidbar/pseuds/MazalHaMidbar
Summary: This is an analytical essay arguing that Weecest is the key to Dean's personal hell . . . and how it might be transcended.
Relationships: Sam/Dean
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	"No One Hates You More Than You Do": An Essay on Self-Loathing, Shame, Suicidality and Dean Winchester

The horror-fantasy-drama series Supernatural returned earlier this autumn from Vancouver, Canada, having filmed the final two episodes of the hit show’s 15th and final season. SPN is the longest-running speculative-fiction scripted show in American television history. This week will be the two-hour series finale.

Another of SPN's distinctions is its penchant for frequent self-reference, breaking the fourth wall and being meta. Early in its run, the monster-hunting Winchester brothers (irreverent, impetuous Dean, steady, studious Sam) discover the existence of the “Supernatural” series of pulp novels, which describe with eerie accuracy all of their adventures. Not long afterward, they find out about the books’ fannish extensions: SPN conventions, SPN cosplay, SPN fan fiction, and that fanfic’s popular subgenre: fantasies about the brothers’ supposed coupling. “That’s just sick!” Dean exclaims when informed of the “Wincest” phenomenon by younger brother Sam. In another episode years later, as the brothers rescue a girls’ school debuting an SPN-themed musical from hostile entities, Dean is decidedly uncomfortable with the actresses portraying the brothers posing in a way he considers unnaturally close.

SPN is fictional. Wincest is not. SPN had barely aired its first episode in 2005 when the first Wincest story was uploaded to the Internet. Thousands have since postulated online that the brothers are (as Dean tastefully referred to it) “together together.”

Just how absurd is that notion? And could there be any substantiation for the concept within the show itself?

The idea initially seems utterly absurd. Sam and Dean are both consistently depicted as enthusiastically heterosexual, frequently lucky, and far more than merely competent between the sheets. When not seeking cases to solve, battling evil or traveling the Lower 48 in their classic car, they spend their free time drinking beer, gobbling junk food, listening to music, viewing porn and enjoying brief liaisons with local lovelies.

And yet . . . the pair are often initially perceived by strangers -- from middle-aged realtors to college nerds to adolescent desk clerks -- as a gay couple. Sam generally regards this phenomenon with amusement, while Dean is usually more rattled.

And yet . . . though they bicker constantly as they pursue their mission of “saving people, hunting things, the family business,” they travel together, work together and live together in one seedy motel room, having no hesitation about brushing their teeth at the same time at the same sink. Even midway through the series, after they move into the cavernous bunker and stake claim to separate bedrooms, Sam calls Dean out for allegedly wearing the same pair of boxer shorts for four days straight; just how could Sam possibly know that?

And yet . . . despite their frequent clashes, they make covert deals with demons to bring each other back from illness, injury or death. They argue, sometimes tearfully, about which of them is more devoted to the other. To be separated for any length of time -- particularly for “desperate, sloppy, needy” Dean “with the broken psyche” -- is emotionally painful.

And yet . . . before sacrificing himself at the Season Five finale to return Lucifer to Hell, Sam makes Dean swear to reconcile with former flame Lisa and foreswear hunting. However, just a year later, Sam comes looking for his big brother -- and Lisa immediately knows that Dean will leave her to return to what she calls “the most unhealthy, tangled-up, crazy thing.”

And yet . . . an observant enemy describes Sam and Dean to a potential collaborator as “psychotically, irrationally, erotically co-dependent.” A clinical psychologist might more accurately diagnose this relationship as “enmeshed” – adults being involved with each other’s lives far more than is optimal. A layperson might call it emotional incest. Even a staff writer for a well-known national publication has called it unhealthy.

<https://www.tvguide.com/news/supernatural-winchester-codependency-castiel-left/>

For those for whom the idea of Wincest fic isn’t edgy enough, a subcategory of that phenomenon goes even further -- Weecest. In Weecest tales, Sam and Dean are portrayed as being intimate long before SPN’s storyline begins, when both are “wee,” teens or younger.

As difficult as that very concept may to contemplate, I contend that Weecest is a plausible scenario given the pair’s lonely childhood and neglectful upbringing. It goes a long way toward explaining their intense interpersonal interactions into early middle age. And, it provides disturbing insight into Dean’s tortured mind.

At one point, speaking to Sam, Dean freely acknowledges that his “denial” of his psychic pain tends to manifest in “bursts of alcoholism and violence.” Dean is aware enough to admit, again, to Sam, that he deals with mental discomfort through “bullets, bacon and booze – lots of booze.”

Being “the guys who save the world” is a burden for both men, involving injury, illness, torture and death. But the nature of the work just doesn’t weigh Sam down to the same extent.

Much but not all of this difference can be attributed to elder brother Dean having suffered intense personal trauma as a tiny boy.

When Dean is 4 ¾ years old and Sam 6 months, their mother, Mary, is disemboweled and then burned to death by a yellow-eyed demon, who also taints “Baby Sammy” with its blood. Finally, their father, John, arrives, thrusts Sam into Dean’s arms and orders him to carry him to safety from the blazing house, which pre-school-aged Dean readily does.

The angry, grieving, widowed John soon turns vigilante: seeking his wife’s killer, often taking his sons on these road trips, training them as fellow soldiers -- and, when choosing to work alone, frequently leaving Sam in Dean’s sole care for weeks at a time.

Dean -- mourning his mother, coping with his demanding father, with no real home or support network, and shouldering an absurd amount of responsibility -- does his best. Some dozen flashbacks over the run of the show make it clear that Dean, from the age of 10 if not younger, all but raises Sam single-handedly, doing an excellent job; Sam becomes a brother, son and hunter to be proud of.

But to be a parentified sibling can take a lifelong toll, as a much-better-known writer that I observed about her own life not too long ago:

<https://www.thefix.com/my-brothers-keeper>

And, sometimes, inevitably, Dean slips up. As a middle schooler, ordered not to leave Sam’s side for even a minute, he nevertheless grows restless after many days and ducks out to play pinball. In that brief interval, a monster nearly kills Sam; Dean regrets his dereliction of duty ever after. Then, at 16, Dean lands in a home for troubled youth. He had been caught shoplifting food after having gambled away the grocery money John provided before leaving on yet another solo hunt.

So we clearly see that, with few role models for normative behavior, with only Sam for regular company, and being only a boy himself, Dean’s judgment was imperfect.

Puberty inevitably arrived for both brothers. Straight-identifying young teens even in real-world two-parent stable homes often experiment with kids of the same gender simply because that is who is most available at that age. I recall a five-minute make-out session with another girl when we were around 12; senior year in high school, a boy I briefly dated confided in me about his own, longer-lasting same-sex relationship at 13.

As Dean and then Sam approached adolescence, given their rootless, isolated upbringing, and seeking what comfort they could, their relationship might indeed have become inappropriate. Their strong emotional bond throughout adulthood might be a vestigial echo of having been too close physically in childhood. And, if so, then, as the elder brother, Dean surely would have felt culpable for having let things get out of control.

That, I think, could be the genesis of his dark outlook, apparent even in Season One, long before being forced into the role of torturer of other damned souls in Hell. Dean actually says it, literally, to himself, as early as “Dream a Little Dream of Me” in Season Three: “How worthless you feel, how you look into a mirror and hate what you see!”

A broken heart (and a high sex drive) began for him far earlier than that. In a Season Four flashback, we see Dean at 18 during a three-week stint when John is once again absent, Dean is briefly enrolled in high school and woos, then cheats on, a bright girl from a stable home. When she catches him, she excoriates him in front of a crowd of other students; she has already intuited that, even then, his cool, rebellious demeanor is but the cover-up of a “sad, lonely little boy.”

By the second half of SPN’s run, Dean – long a heavy drinker and increasingly given to depression – has become a hardcore alcoholic with a serious death wish. At one point in Season 13, he declares, “I don’t matter!” to Death herself and offers to let her take him to the afterlife, though she refuses, saying that his destiny lies elsewhere.

I simply cannot attribute all of Dean’s hopelessness to what has been portrayed on screen: the harsh realities of hunter life, his toddler trauma, his parentification while in single digits, or his remorse for his actions when imprisoned in Hell, doing a stint as a demon, being compelled to kill by the Mark of Cain, and acting as the vessel for the evil archangel Michael. 

Why do I say that? Because Sam has also suffered – and has unintentionally done wrong – at least as much as Dean. Sam witnessed the slaughter of his college sweetheart, got addicted to demon blood, released Lucifer, was tortured by Lucifer, was possessed by Lucifer, triggered an apocalypse, lost his soul, lost his mind, and has indirectly caused the deaths of several friends.

Yet Sam never seems to be as mentally anguished or as guilt-ridden as Dean, nor does he exhibit any sustained self-destructive behaviors. For the most part, Sam seems to be able to put the pain of the past in perspective, to forgive himself, and to move on – exactly what Dean cannot do.

Dean’s self-loathing, shame and suicidality have steadily intensified upon hitting 40 – the age at which he might have had his own young-adult offspring, if he had ever been able to enjoy a sustained apple-pie, white-picket-fence, non-hunter lifestyle. Might this mental torment derive from repressed memories surfacing of having, if only in his own somber view, seduced his younger brother when they both were teens?

We cannot know the answer to that question. But, to me at least, the Weecest concept provides an uncomfortable yet logical explanation to the stark differences between the brothers. And it lends dark resonance to the scene in which their plain-spoken frenemy, demon-turned-eventual-ally Crowley, tells Dean, “Your problem is that no one hates you more than you do.” The name of that Season Nine episode? “First Born.”

What is most poignant of all is that if my theory were true, and if Dean could use his words as well as he does his fists, and if he actually ever broached the subject with Sam, he might finally find the peace of mind he deserves.

Here is how I imagine Sam <https://screenrant.com/supernatural-better-winchester-sam-dean/>

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1222599/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1222599/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu)

(canonically the more forgiving of the two, and the one more aware of the hell that the teen years are for all) responding:

“That was a long time ago, Dean. Years ago. Decades ago. You didn’t mean to hurt me. And you didn’t hurt me. What you did – what we did, together – was from what life did to both of us. It was immaturity, and hormones, and too much responsibility, and too little support. You did nothing you need to be forgiven for. But if you need me to say that I forgive you, then I forgive you. Completely, totally, permanently. Now you need to forgive yourself. And then you need to forget all about it. Because we still have work to do.”  
  


As “the road so far” for the Winchesters careens toward its inevitable end this week (the two-hour series conclusion is scheduled for Nov. 19, 2020), SPN fans continue to pour out their bittersweet feelings on social media. As one person posted several weeks ago on Twitter, “You are proud to be a Supernatural fan because you know that the best story ever told isn’t happy, and you know it’s going to end bloody. But it doesn’t mean that you stop loving it.”

Nor do you stop loving Sam and Dean, whatever their relationship is, and whatever it might have been in the past. I can only hope that if the brothers do die at series’ end – because, let’s face it, death is the end of everyone’s story – it will be in a manner every bit as heroically as they lived.

_The author has never been a hunter but did learn the hyper-responsibility that goes with being the eldest child in a dysfunctional family long before she started college. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology at 20 after being told she had to major in something besides boys. Like the angel Castiel, she spends far too much time thinking about Dean Winchester._


End file.
